Raap

Makes no sense for a destroyed building to still function like that, if you ask me. Speaking of which, seems no one ever did get around to making destruction animations for buildings.

Just an early notice; A public test for Hostile Waters will be scheduled in the near future. My hope with this is, to get feedback from a larger population match, and then make changes for the final version based on the results of that. Balance is the primary focus of the test, nothing else is likely to change unless it could affect the balance. We had a small 4 vs 4 test this Saturday, and outside of some issues, the map played quite well with those numbers. Unfortunately the testing team currently cannot handle a larger scale test, so that's why a public test is required. The test will be done in a feature-complete version of the map.

Looks nice. I almost forgot what C&C3 looked like. I suddenly recall the overdone cloud shadows.

I'm pretty sure there are higher quality versions of all the sound tracks. I have a few from Red Alert, although where I got them from, I do not remember. Might be a long shot, but perhaps you could reach out to Frank Klepacki to see if he still has the original high quality, non-remix versions?

Nice patch. But it is very unfortunate you couldn't control yourself adding in those music remixes. But I'll give you another shot at finding the right music files. Let me know when this happened, so I can turn the music back on.

I'm aware it was a joke, I sometimes get into the habit of giving a serious response to everything. The stats concern is valid, it is why in the current test version, the explosion effects are not guaranteed kills for infantry, and more for effect. They don't even damage naval units. Speaking of test versions, I'm awaiting feedback on matters exactly such as this.

Well, since the self destruction of the other buildings does not generate points, I had to make sure the victor was obvious from just one building destruction, otherwise we'd run into the situation where one team wins but still has lower score. The 10k points *should* be split among all winning team players, but I've not actually tested that yet. As for the nukes explosions... Well, the basement layer would be able to explain it. The alternative would be external destruction via cinematic effects, unfortunately this is not within my field of expertise. Super units unfortunately just will not work, not unless I can implement several conditions that are required to unlock their purchase - or overal availability. My development time is put to better use elsewhere however.

Here is a base destruction sequence preview.

In my opinion, going down the unit cloning path is too gimmicky. I stick with my previous comment on this matter; A good middle ground solution is to slightly raise the damage of officer machine guns to heavy armor (tanks). Perhaps have shotguns deal more damage to light armor (transports, etc.) so you create a small sub-role specialization. Obviously the more expensive units are supposed to be better... So keep your barracks alive. It is a tough issue however. You want to ensure that a losing team can still turn the battle around, but at the same time you don't want a losing team to be able to still grind the game into a stalemate which causes players to leave. The trick is in the numbers, to find the right middle ground that allows for players to turn a match around while still preventing to encourage kill farming situations.

Progress continues. Testers will have access to a new version today, complete with map objectives. Not quite release-worthy yet since some content is still missing, but it's slowly getting there.

What exactly goes in the middle is still being finalized. The end product will be primarily what time allows me to add. The main focus is on the core gameplay right now, which has a lot of work to be done. Expect changes to the icebergs as well, as currently the map is very submarine biased.

I'm pretty sure I'd need more candy canes added before that were to happen. Slight development delay; RL is holding me up for a moment. Expect some sort of an update by next weekend, when I should have had more time to work on the map.

Oh, no. As I said, I mixed the audio.

Just finished mixing audio files for the buildings and map objectives. How fortunate that Battlelaf was mostly consistent in his way of delivering the lines.

Advertising would likely bring legal issues with EA. In a perfect world, the game could be put on Steam for $5, where the money goes to Steam for hosting/advertising costs, and then provide players an easy way of hosting their own servers. This last part is currently not even possible without significant effort, to my knowledge. (Really trashy games make it onto Steam for prices lower than that, it's not at all far fetched that in this scenario, W3D projects would be boosted by thousands of players.) However, turning APB or any W3D project into a profiting project, would be causing significant complications in many areas, not the least of which would be crediting previous contributors, and all of that is hard to figure out since there is no documentation on this. If memory serves me correctly, APB actually got pulled from a Steam-clone application due to them getting cold feet about potential legal issues with EA. The same will repeat in nearly any advertising scenario of any notable magnitude until EA provides a legal document stating they agree/dont care/whatever. Then even if that were to happen, W3D Hub is not a business entity, so who would officially own it? Etc. In other words, it's not an easy process to advertise these projects. Then I am also of opinion that W3D wouldn't be ready for masses of players. The single thing that would drive them off in large quantity, would be W3D's netcode. The netcode does not allow for highly competitive play, which is something that people demand in the age of CSGO and MOBA's.

The sub pen door is no longer a faction locked door. Pillboxes aren't as effective against submarines as turrets, which is the primary purpose of the turret being there.

Soviets don't need a Hind for that; stairs lead up to the upper level and MCT room, which is intended by design to limit the number of possible attack routes to 3, the same number as the Sub Pen. The Sub Pen does this limiting of routes by the design of the building, so for the naval Yard I had two options; Block off the lower area with walls and make it no longer look like a Red Alert inspired naval building, or force a similar gameplay effect via locked doors. That said, take this roof landing theory; but then apply the knowledge that in the base itself also exist several AA Guns, including one on top of the Construction Yard close to the Naval Yard. Unless the AA defenses are destroyed by ships or infantry, the air space above the naval buildings and bases is effectively a no-fly zone. Edit: To be clear; I tested trying to charge at the Naval Yard and Sub Pen with a helicopter to see how close I'd get. I never made it near them.

It was actually possible all-along. Simply put, nobody knew about it. W3D was always full of surprises.

Thanks for the kind words. The map and naval yard are currently undergoing a few changes, one of them being that the doors and gates are damageable - I had no idea this was made possible by the programming team in my absence. Some other changes are being worked on by Generalcamo based on tester feedback.

Triple post, woop. Made a video for the Advanced Naval Yard, in-game. Keep in mind this is still somewhat a work in progress (note the lack of small crates and such), but the overal design is final. Please ignore the water in this video, it's fooked, pending overhaul.

Files for the first "raw" version handed over to the W3D QA team for murdering inspection. Development is on hold, pending their feedback. Edit: I'll mention that the map is a night time map right now, I thought it looked better.

While not co-op, the release version of HW will feature gameplay similar to Seamist.

The faction locked MCT's are out for now, however the Allied naval yard does have a few faction locked doors in order to limit the amount of attack routes to the MCT to 3; The same number as the Soviet sub pen has. The Allied MCT is located in the central upper room. But these buildings honestly aren't large enough to be maps of their own, neither are they designed for that. Unfortunately the sub pen has to be re-textured at a later date due to having several multi-material objects, and there is no way to "undo" multi-materials besides outright redoing the texture work. This will take a lot of time and won't be something I'll bother with until the map is near completion.

Alright, here is the last work in progress update on the Advanced Naval Yard. Special thanks to Generalcamo for some assets. Note that this render does not include crates, containers, barrels, and whatever. Just the base model. Some textures are subject to change, if and once I get around creating new ones. As always, feedback is welcome. Edit: Don't mind the missing (black) textures, that's just a file missing.

Perhaps the server can be configured so that when the server reaches 0 players, bot map(s) play by default on loop until more than 6 players enter the server. Edit: Actually, perhaps a different angle; game-wide scripts that detect the player quantity in a map and if it falls below a certain number, activate bots to emulate players, and de-activate when enough players join (bots would stop respawning on death). This would cut the need for separate bot maps.